You have to come back with an answer... Not "this is defeatist"
What will you do if supermarkets raise prices 10 percent because this action costs 10 percent?
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We're not buying it - No supermarkets on Wednesday 28 October
- Thread starter Combat squirrel
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You have to come back with an answer... Not "this is defeatist"
What will you do if supermarkets raise prices 10 percent because this action costs 10 percent?
Nobody's asking anyone to sit at home, just saying a day off the shopping won't dent them. Calling it defeatism because someone doubts a tactic is a bit rich.
The book's worth a read but I'd say it's on my side here. Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns win more often than violent ones, but what matters is how many people take part and how long they stay at it. The figure she points to is around 3.5% of the population actively taking part. For Britain that's roughly 2.4 million people, kept at it for months, not a single day.
I am blown away that people still have 'local shops'.
And those suggesting Lidl and Aldi don't seem to realise they're just as big as the others. They are absolutely not 'small businesses'.
Civil Resistance is no use, when it involves people buying food for their families. Luxury goods, etc. perhaps, but not everyday needs.
And those suggesting Lidl and Aldi don't seem to realise they're just as big as the others. They are absolutely not 'small businesses'.
Civil Resistance is no use, when it involves people buying food for their families. Luxury goods, etc. perhaps, but not everyday needs.
How does this help the Supermarkets reduce fuel costs, electricity costs and staff wage costs that have increased for them, the food suppliers and the hauliers involved in the supply chain?
This is where your food costs doubling has come from, not the Supermarket profit margin
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Exactly!! ding ding ding, resist, & persist, as I've said many times, it needs doing over, and over and over ......... you're absolutely right.
So it has to start, somewhere, doesn't it.
The first step would be to actually understand the underlying reasons why food costs are rising and then consider whether a chosen action is even remotely likely to have an impact.
Food costs aren't going up because supermarkets collectively decided 'lol lets all triple our net profit margins by raising prices, those plebs will surely pay anyway', so the sort of action you propose isn't going to change anything, it's working from an entirely flawed premise in the first place, they're generally all working to the same margins as ever but the underlying costs of producing, transporting, packaging etc. etc. are all going up. Boycotting the shops themselves won't change that, it won't make fuel prices come down, it won't fix broken supply chains etc.
We agree it has to last, which is the bit that matters. Where I'd differ is the start as a day off shopping that everyone's forgotten by the weekend doesn't start anything. Doing the same day again a month later just leaves gaps and that's where it dies. If you want it to last, pick something people can keep up for a few months and one specific demand a supermarket can actually answer.
Without wanting to be defeatest I don't think this will work. Firstly this is the first time I have heard of it so the marketing hasn't been great. But secondly, just stopping for a day won't change anything. People will still buy the same amount but simply shop the day before or the day after. The shops will not lose a penny. It needs to be for an extended time; say a week, for it to have an effect.
Just to put this into perspective for a single product type e.g. a Cabbage.
- The farmer who grows a cabbage has had increased Diesel costs, increased Fertiliser costs, as well as presumably wanting a small wage increase for himself.
- The farm workers who pick the cabbage all want a pay rise because "cost of living"
- The haulier who take the cabbage from the farmer to the Supermarket RDC, have had increase Diesel costs, increase electricity costs (if they have a warehouse for Cross docking etc), increased admin staff wages (because minimum wage has risen), increased driver wages (because why shouldn't their wages increase if minimum wage has increased), increased National insurance costs.
- The RDC has increased electricity costs, increased staff wages etc.
- The haulier who take the products from the RDC to the actual supermarket stores, have all of the same costs as the previous haulier.
- The supermarket store has increased electricity costs, staff wage rises, national insurance costs.
(and there's more the deeper you go e.g. the man who drives the fuel tanker want a payrise because everyone else is getting one, so that goes on the price of fuel) or more complicated examples such as processed foods that have huge numbers of ingredients that all come from different suppliers who all add increases.
All of these increases whilst individually a couple of percent here and there add up to a huge increase.